In order to participate in regional competitions, one must acquire a certain number of GymBadges signifying the defeat of that region's Gym Leaders.

In the anime, the League is known for its many traditions, including the opening celebration which evokes the flame of Moltres (or in the case of the Silver Conference, the flame of Ho-Oh), alluding to the Olympic Flame.

Championship competitions

A championship competition poster. Note the usage of type symbols used in the TCG

Periodically, regional championship competitions will be held for qualifying Trainers to come together and battle their Pokémon. Hundreds of the best Trainers participate in these competitions.

Rules vary from region to region, but generally, championship competitions are divided into three parts: qualifying rounds, preliminary rounds, and final rounds. Highly skilled Trainers will move on to compete with a smaller pool of competitors. The Trainer that defeats all other competitors is deemed the winner of the competition. Losing Trainers who participate in the competitions will be ranked accordingly.

Chairman Charles Goodshow serves as the president of the League Competition Committee and oversees all the regional competitions.

Pokémon League competitions across continuities

In the games

In the game continuity, the Pokémon League challenge consists solely of collecting 8 Badges and challenging that region's Elite Four, as well as defeating the reigning champion immediately after beating the Elite Four.

In the anime

In the anime continuity, the League challenge is a tournament. Trainers qualify by having at least eight Gym Badges from the relevant region, and then an elimination tournament takes place between the qualifying Trainers. The winner of the tournament is invited to challenge that region's Elite Four in battle.

In the manga

In the Pokémon Adventures manga

In Pokémon Adventures, the Pokémon League consists of a regional tournament held every 3 years in each region. There are two ways of qualifying for the tournament—either by having eight Gym Badges or defeating a large number of other applicants without Gym Badges in preliminary rounds. The Pokémon League is sanctioned and run by the Pokémon Association.

In addition, there is no Elite Four challenge. The Elite Four are simply powerful groups of four Trainers from each region who ally themselves with each other for power, and their activities are not sanctioned by the Pokémon League or related to the Pokémon Association—in fact, the activities of Kanto's Elite Four were villainous in nature. The Hoenn League added new rules to the Pokémon League tournament. The person that wins the tournament will be allowed to fight the Elite Four, four previous winners of the tournament. The Sinnoh Elite Four was enlisted by Pokémon Association to decode Charon's notebook in order to find out more about his aspiration, and the Johto Elite Four is comprised of ex-criminals who are seeking emotional support from each other by training together.

The Unova League is similar to the Hoenn League. As explained by Black, participants can only compete when they have won eight Gym Badges. The Trainers that have earned eight Gym Badges are allowed to enter the Unova League tournament. The winner of this tournament is then allowed to fight the Elite Four, and then they will be allowed to fight the Champion.